Trayvon Martin and the New Racism

We upgrade our computers. We upgrade our phones. We upgrade our TVs. So why wouldn’t we upgrade our racist tendencies? Yes, folks, we are in a whole new world of racism. Racism 2.0.

So here I am doing a WTF on racism. I have written about one aspect of racism recently but that was before the shooting of Trayvon Martin. The death of this young man has shown us a whole new upgraded form of racism. Racism 1.0 was linear and direct. It was the KKK version of bigotry. You are black therefore you are not as valuable as me therefore I can kill you with no guilt. But, like running DOS on our computers now, Racism 1.0 did not work in our society so something new had to be designed.

The new racism has to be consciousness friendly. It needs to allow the racist to have black friends, Hispanic friends, white friends and a great mix of nationalities while still being able to point the gun at the ‘bad ones’. With Racism 2.0, we do not just shoot black people. Oh, do not get me wrong. Trayvon Martin was murdered because he is black. But, not solely because he was black. Under the new racism that is not enough. Travyon was black which makes him a criminal under the new rules. He was young which makes him a criminal. He wore the obvious clothing of a criminal, the hoodie. If he was an older black man wearing a suit, he would still be alive.

Under Racism 1.0, the death of an African-American by the hands of a Hispanic would mean little. After all, using the old version of bigotry, this is just one shade of mud removing another from the pure waters of society. The new racism requires something more. So now Trayvon needs to be portrayed as a hoodlum, a criminal. He had marijuana related… I do not know what. It does not matter if he sold marijuana or used it for his glaucoma. What matters is that we can put him into the ‘bad one’ category.

(By the way, that ‘bad one’ category includes some gays and some women. Under Racism 2.0, good gays do hair, have sex in a bathroom, and talk in dramatic whispers. They are unmarried and happy with that. Good women are married and deal with the home. The ‘bad ones’ always seem to want more.)

Trayvon Martin was murdered. He did not have a gun. He did not have a knife. He is not some Steven Segal martial artist. He may have been a saint or an asshole. None of this should have condemned him to death. That fact that Zimmerman is not in jail now is because he is fluent in the new language of Racism 2.0. He loves the police. He upholds the law as he sees it. He acts as much like an old white guy as a young Latino can.

The one thing that all of the users of Racism 2.0 really love is that it is reverse compatible. Once we start using Racism 2.0, we can always go back and reboot Racism 1.0. So, do you have your wood crosses ready to burn or is there an app for that?

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3 comments

This was a very interesting article, thank you for writing it. I have to agree with you that many, many times people are judged on necessarily on their race or how they act but “how they look”. How sad.

I found your blog through the blogger comment club. Thank you for letting me visit.

Nice perspective. I would add that racism today has become more covert and structural. Just because you do not espouse racial tendencies yourself does not mean you are not being racist or homophobic or discriminating against women.

Because participating in a society that marginalizes all the non-white, non-heterosexual, and non-men and benefiting from it means you are part of the problem.

In essence, we are all part of the problem, time to rage against the machine.